US POLITICS SPRING 2011: Let's just call off this country.

... okay?

If a meteor had crashed into the Earth, we might have all die, but that isn't what happened.

It's great that a Dem is winning in a traditional Republican district on a don't let the Republicans destroy medicare platform, but as I said yesterday if there wasn't a 3rd party candidate, she might have lost.

Nate Silver said the Dem still would have won by two points.

x-post
In other news, I'm not even going to post The Corner's gism-covered posts about Netanyahu's speech to Congress.

― The Edge of Gloryhole (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn),

The Washington Post and others are also still beating up on Obama for daring to say "1967 borders"

x-post- Uh nevermind. Nate's math is better than mine.

In other news:
How Joplin, Missouri aid is being paid for (from Washington Monthly blog):

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) announced yesterday that congressional Republicans would like to help the victims of the brutal tornado in Joplin, Missouri, but emergency aid wouldn’t be automatic. The community would get its federal disaster relief, just as soon as the GOP received a ransom: off-setting spending cuts.

He wasn’t kidding. When Tom DeLay was the House Majority Leader, Republican agreed that emergency disaster relief should be immediate. But by 2011 standards, Tom DeLay was a moderate.

And sure enough, House Republicans yesterday approved a $1 billion aid package, right after they got their payoff.

House Republicans, who require spending cuts whenever new spending is proposed, said the FEMA funds would be paid by cutting $1.5 billion from an Energy Department loan program for the production of fuel-efficient vehicles.

refusing to respond to the kind of disaster that climate change contributes to until cuts are are made to the kind of program that helps to mitigate climate change.

brilliant. those fuckers

Credit where credit is due.

(He's still a crazy semi-racist Aqua Buddha.)

Assholes like Rand Paul just want to limit the reach of the federal government so that local governments can step in as the fascist enforcer of choice. I'd believe his principled blather if his so-called libertarianism extended to drugs and abortions.

well, the Senate is made of alliances, holy and otherwise, so I'd work with him if I was a lib fighting like hell to keep the Patriot Act from getting extended.

House Republicans, who require spending cuts whenever new spending is proposed, said the FEMA funds would be paid by cutting $1.5 billion from an Energy Department loan program for the production of fuel-efficient vehicles.

jesus christ, talk about divide and rule

wake me up when military spending is subject to the same logic

Greenwald wrote about yesterday massive congressionellatio for Netanyahu

yesterday's that is

And Greenwald nicely attacked David Brooks too.

From Greenwald I see that the 8 who voted against cloture on the Patriot Act extension were:

The 8 Senators voting against cloture were Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders, Democrats Jeff Merkley, Mark Begich, Max Baucus, and John Tester, and GOP Senators Lisa Murkowski, Rand Paul, and Dean Heller (GOP Sen. Mike Lee announced he'd vote NO but missed the vote due to inclement weather). Sen. Paul, along with Sen. Tester, took the lead in speaking out against the excesses and abuses of the Patriot Act and the vital need for reforms.

Make the plunge, doctor: "I admire President Obama for standing up to him, knowing he'd take flak from all sides."

It's weird who Obama will stand up to, although its also not clear whether he will stick with whatever belief he is espousing when he first does so.

Baucus against the Patriot Act?! huh

Tester from Montana is a centrist mostly too

Obama has always said good things, clemenza, which seldom come to pass and are often retracted by his deeds.

congressionellatio

!!! <3

wake me up when military spending is subject to the same logic

Or trimming tax breaks to Big Oil by about 5%. But the budget can ONLY be balanced on the backs of the EPA, Planned Parenthood, public television, teachers' unions...

remember in January and February when even a few scattered Republicans said DOD cuts were "on the table"? Are any of them still saying so?

Feingold may try to come back. That way in 4 years, there can be 9 senators instead of 8, trying to prevent another extension of the Patriot Act.

In Wisconsin, if former Sen. Russ Feingold (D) decides to run for retiring Sen. Herb Kohl’s (D) seat, PPP shows him as the clear early frontrunner. In hypothetical match-ups, Feingold leads all of the likely Republican candidates in margins ranging from 10 to 15 points. Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D) does well, but not nearly as well.

from Washington Monthly

Obama has always said good things, clemenza, which seldom come to pass and are often retracted by his deeds.

I hear you. Don't get your hopes up on this one--this is one battle no president is going to follow through on. I'm just hoping he's doing what everyone wanted him to do on health care, which is aim for something that's just not going to happen, then settle for a pretty good halfway mark.

halfway looked like 14/15 wrong to me

I'm just hoping

just as he planned!

From the campaign on, Obama has rarely paid much lip service (fellatio or otherwise) to Israel. It just hasn't seemed anywhere near the top of his priorities, and when he does talk about it, it's pro forma palaver, devoid of much passion. So if he was going to stand-up to anyone, it'd be Israel/Netanyahu. If only he were so "tough" about domestic issues he and his constituents purportedly care about.

I think part of it is that he doesn't perceive any political risks from being kinda dickish to Israel (ie, they need us WAY more badly than we need them, especially in the currently rapidly shifting political landscape of the Middle East)

quick question: which is more radical, a US president making explicit reference to the "1967 borders" in a speech about the middle east, or an Israeli PM calling the west bank "judea and samaria" on the floor of the US congress?

did he really do that

jesus

no irony intended

did he call Iran the Persian Caliphate

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/israeli-prime-minister-binyamin-netanyahus-address-to-congress/2011/05/24/AFWY5bAH_print.html

Now, this is not easy for me. It’s not easy...

... because I recognize that in a genuine peace, we’ll be required to give up parts of the ancestral Jewish homeland. And you have to understand this: In Judea and Samaria, the Jewish people are not foreign occupiers.

We’re not the British in India. We’re not the Belgians in the Congo. This is the land of our forefathers, the land of Israel, to which Abraham brought the idea of one God, where David set out to confront Goliath, and where Isaiah saw a vision of eternal peace.

No distortion of history -- and boy, am I reading a lot of distortions of history lately, old and new -- no distortion of history could deny the 4,000-year-old bond between the Jewish people and the Jewish land.

ugh fucking noxious bullshit

so "giving up" the land that doesn't already have settlements, walled roads or military installations on it will be painful for bibi! i guess that makes it even then.

http://i.min.us/icAP9I.png

NetanYahoo! Answers

How far back does Netanyahu's "dibs" go, exactly? Because by his standard there's got to be a whole lot of giving back around the world, if multi-millennial rights trump the present.

oh thx a lot Bill

this fucking guy

Cockblocker-in-Chief

i had to spend a minute thinking abt grassley to figure out whether "Netanyahoo" was #shotsfired or not

bill's not wrong...?

he's not wrong, but saying that at this time = thinly coded message that Medicare being gutted is a likely Dem proposal

We’re not the British in India. We’re not the Belgians in the Congo. This is the land of our forefathers, the land of Israel, to which Abraham brought the idea of one God, where David set out to confront Goliath, and where Isaiah saw a vision of eternal peace.

real far-sighted there, isaiah!

ahahaha

Clinton then told Ryan that if he ever wanted to talk about it, he should give him a call.

"it" = "forcing the Democrats to abandon their we-have-a-plan-it's-called-Medicare proposal," not "French whores."

are you sure you mean "not" and not "as well as"

is Ryan an expert in French whores or something